


His Body and Freedom

by TW Lewis (gardendoor)



Category: She-Wolf of London
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-01-06
Updated: 1998-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardendoor/pseuds/TW%20Lewis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How dangerous can a paraplegic werewolf be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Body and Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Randi and the Mathesons, and if I did, She-Wolf of London would have run more than one season. Everyone else is mine. Thanks to Sue Smith for beta reading.

_Belfast, 1990_  
Toby handed Amos another lager from the bar and poked him hard in the ribs, sloshing a healthy dose of beer head over their hands. “How about that one? The Italian looker in the corner?”

“The one on the lap of that huge meat rack?” Amos asked. “No thanks. I come home with a shiner and me Mum’ll tear me to pieces.” They’d been in the pub since dinner and by now Amos wasn’t even sure what time it was, only that it was after midnight on a Friday night. And that was only important because it meant no school tomorrow, and as long as he got home before dawn, his parents wouldn’t tear too much out of his hide for his adventure. So he’d stay as long as Toby’s older brother was willing to buy them drinks. The pub was dark, and someone had plugged loud German techno in the jukebox. The regulars, the saddest collection of balding, overweight, overworked Irish stiffs like Amos’s own father, hunched over their pints and tried to ignore the ferocity of the kids eager to party.

“Ah, come on, Amos!” Toby cried. “Be a man! It’s a Friday night. We’ve got the wine and the song, now it’s time for the _women_.”

“Always one for the classics, eh, Toby?” Amos asked. “You think she’s so fine, do th’deed yourself.”

Toby drew himself up to his full and unimpressive height, and attempted to make a straight line over to the table where the sleek, exotic looking woman sat on her boyfriend’s lap, talking to a tall female friend who had an elfin cap of red hair and a little sun tattoo on her shoulder. Trust Toby to go for the one that was the most trouble. Toby already had six pints in him, and Toby was a silly drunk.  


  
Amos followed his friend, half out of morbid curiosity and half to see if he could grab the redhead while Toby got himself flattened. He himself had polished off three pints tonight, which was enough to give him a pleasant feeling in his stomach, but kept him from the giggles and stupidity of his classmate and friend.

“ ‘Scuze me,” Toby asked the darker girl. “Good to see you again, Emily.”

“My name’s not Emily,” she replied, with a quirk in her smile that suggested to Amos that she wanted to see how far she could take this before her boyfriend beat the living tar out of Toby. Her thick Irish accent proved she was local bred, as un-exotic as Amos.

But Toby didn’t seem to care; he obviously thought he was on a roll. “Are you sure? ‘Cause you look like her. I was supposed to meet her here, but she doesn’t seem to be anywhere.” Toby’s gaze swerved around the room, looking for the nonexistent girl, then planted itself right back in the path of the dark girl’s laughing eyes. Amos had to give Toby credit for not staring at the girl’s breasts, considering the state he was in. He himself took the opportunity to lean over the redhead’s chair and make a sympathetic face, as though saying ‘what does this guy think he’s doing?’ The redhead grinned back.

“So I’m all alone right now,” Toby continued with a puppy dog pout. “Will you keep me company until Emily shows up?”

“No, but I will,” the meat rack replied. He stood up, spilling the girl out of his lap, and picked up Toby by the scruff of his neck. He hauled Toby to the back of the bar, where the sounds thereafter suggested he was giving Toby a first hand look at the wonders of a filthy toilet bowl.

Amos and the two girls started laughing at that, and Amos said, “The scary thing is, I think he’s drunk enough to think that was his best pick-up line yet.”

“And what’s yours?” the darker girl asked, leaning forward to give him a better view of the attributes that peeked out of her black tank top.

“I don’t go messing with girls who’re spoken for,” Amos answered. “Professional courtesy between thieves.”

“You’re no fun,” the darker one pouted.

“I’m lots of fun,” Amos replied, grinning unabashedly at the redhead. “Want to dance?”

“I’m a good girl,” she protested half-heartedly.

“I’m sure you are, which is why that’s a press-on tattoo instead of a real one. So I promise I won’t do anything your Da could kill me for.” He grinned and waited.

The redhead paused, then grinned back. “You go without me, Jenny,” she told the darker girl, and she stood up to dance with Amos. It turned out when she was standing that she was a bit taller than Amos, but he shrugged it off. “Not a problem. What’s your name?”

“Kelly,” she replied, snuggling against him as they let the pulsing beat of the techno music dictate their movements. He could feel full breasts and soft thighs pressing through her lavender shirt and black miniskirt. He wondered if she would show him more of her body when he convinced her to come out to the parking lot with him afterwards.

There was a small crash, as though someone had dropped a glass. Then the air exploded, and a sudden shock wave threw Amos face-first onto the bar just as something huge and heavy cracked against his back. Shock blasted into white heat and noise. Screaming and pain. Broken glass stabbed his arms and slashed his head, but he was pinned so tightly that he couldn’t struggle against it. Amos started to whimper, then to bawl like a frightened child. Pain and heat and white and noise faded to black.

*****

 _London, four months later._  
“ ‘Scuze me!” Amos called out to a well-dressed group of university students who did a very good job of not looking at him. “ ‘Scuze me, miss? Sir?” As they left down the hall, he muttered, “Fuckin’ Englishmen.” He perked up again. “ ‘Scuze me! Please?”

A somewhat distracted looking old man in a tweed jacket stopped. “Yes?”

“Where’s Dr. Matheson’s office?”

“Dr. Matheson? Down the corridor, up the stairs, to the left. He’s the second to last on the right, room 207.”

“Stairs.” Amos repeated, as though it was a foreign and distasteful word. “Right. Thanks.” His hands painfully gripped the spokes of his wheelchair.

The older man seemed for the first time to realize the predicament. “Should I call security for you?”

Amos briefly weighed the indignity of being carried up the stairs by a sour, fat English security guard who would check his wheelchair for bombs, versus the humiliation of pushing himself up the staircase backwards with his arms, with the chair tied by a cord like a millstone around his neck while passerbys stared and offered to help. “How high is the staircase and how wide are the stairs?”

The old man looked confused. It was probably the first practical question asked of him in years. After much thought, he went off to look, came back, and measured in the air with his hands the width of each stair. “And it’s a full story up.”

Amos closed his eyes. “Call the guard.”

Once the guard had left him at the top of the stairs, still muttering slimy curses at him, Amos turned his chair around and began maneuvering it down the wide hallway. As he approached the door of the office, he took a second to brace himself and to hear what sort of voices came from within.

“What about this one?” an American woman’s voice demanded. “ _The Enuma Elish, a Babylonian Cosmology._ You expect us to read this whole book in time for the pop quiz?” There was a heavy, emphatic thump.

“It’s a perfect example of everything I’ve been talking about in class, Randi,” an English tenor declared. “Underneath all the poetry and wars of the gods, the _Enuma Elish_ is a classic text in Babylonian meteorology and astronomy. It’s critical to the course.” Randy? He called the woman ‘randy’ in a stuffy English university and she didn’t call him out for it? Well, she was American, by the sound of it. Maybe she really was randy. That cheered Amos up a bit.

“It’s also the only copy in the library, and you’ve got it buried under the papers on your desk where the rest of us can’t read it.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause. “No one said academia was easy.”

Amos took that as his cue and cleared his throat, maneuvering the chair to block the doorway. He had a pretty good idea what an odd picture he made: a stocky, well muscled teenager with freckles, gray eyes, and dark curly hair that tumbled over his ears, wearing scuffed sneakers and jeans with worn-out knees in a formal university, sitting in a wheelchair. He knew it would be even stranger when he opened his mouth. He tightened his jaw and shoulders for courage. “Name’s Amos O’Keefe,” he announced in his strong Irish brogue. “Me sister’s a classmate of your nephew Julian’s.”

“Well, there’s a point against you already,” Professor Matheson remarked dryly. “What do you want?” The tweed-covered, strong-jawed Englishman sat at a desk that was covered in papers, with a huge brown volume resting on top of the mess. Amos saw the impeccable clothes, the slightly mocking smile, and felt a twinge of anger. Despite what Julian had said about his uncle, Amos was pretty sure this Professor Matheson would be as smug and unhelpful as the teachers at school. But at least he hadn’t seemed to care about the chair or the brogue.

On the desk next to the book perched a pretty young woman with curly brown hair. She seemed nice, but she was trying desperately not to look at the wheelchair, something Amos tried not to find annoying. He paused a moment and looked back at Ian, struggling for words. “Will you teach me?”

“Teach you what?” Ian asked, setting down a handful of papers to stare at Amos. Again, the professor seemed annoyed that Amos was wasting his time, but his eyes glared straight into Amos’s, not a single flicker at the chair. No one had done that since the accident. Amos had to make himself heard. He had to convince this man to help him. He couldn’t let those eyes dismiss him and move on. “I was going to be a park ranger. Tromp through the woods all day.”

An embarrassed flush crept over the Professor’s collar. “I can see where that would present a problem,” he murmured, then winced as the woman jabbed him with her elbow.

Amos glared at him, but kept going. “Now I can’t even work with my Da in the factory. I’m in my last year at school, and I’m new here. I’ve never studied worth a -- a lick,” he quickly censored himself. “The teachers won’t waste their time on me. They think I’m just a dumb Irishman. I want you to explain things to me and show me what to study, and I’ll do the rest. Then when I apply to university, I have a chance of getting in somewhere. I need an education, Dr. Matheson.” He suddenly felt embarrassed and stared down at his faded red tee shirt. “I couldn’t pay much, but I could be your assistant, make copies and such--”

The girl -- Randy? -- suddenly burst in, “Ian would love to help you, wouldn’t you, Ian? We both would.” She jabbed him again before he could protest.

“Ow! Uh, how far behind are you?” At Amos’s doubtful expression, he tried, “What marks do you get usually?”

“Average. But I need to be better than average to go on to university.”

“True. But there’s another problem as well. If you have trouble paying me, will you be able to afford the costs of books even if you do get in?”

“I’ll manage.” The truth was, he didn’t know. But if he told Ian that, he’d be stopped dead in his tracks again. His only chance in this was to bravo his way through level after level of obnoxious English bureaucracy, and not give them a chance to shoot him down before he reached the next level.

Ian thought about it for a minute. “Could you let us speak privately a moment?” Amos backed the wheelchair out of the office, but stayed within hearing range. “A terrier would probably make a better pet, Randi.”

“How can you be so mean? The poor kid wants a break. We can’t just let his life go down the drain for no reason.”

“Randi, that ‘poor kid’ is a friend of Julian’s. For all we know he could be dealing drugs out of the bottom of that wheelchair. Between my job at the university, writing my book, and trying to find you a cure, I really don’t have time for another project. Besides, there are tutors for this sort of thing.”

“You heard him. He probably can’t afford a tutor. He’s asking because he’s hoping that since you’re Julian’s uncle, you won’t say no.” There was a pause. “Look, how about I do most of the work with him, and you just give him assignments and direction? Please? I’ll treat you to Kaptain Kandy for breakfast if you do it.”

“Wonderful,” Ian managed with dry sarcasm.

There was a long pause. “Look, if he was a gang member or a terrorist he wouldn’t be here. Did you see those jeans he was wearing? The knees are nearly worn through. Whatever happened to him, it happened recently, or he’d have a new pair of jeans by now. I think getting hurt was his wake-up call. Coming to you probably took a pretty heroic effort, and you don’t make that kind of effort unless you’re desperate. Which means he’s on the way down. So if you want him dead, just send him away.”

Amos was on the edge of his seat as long seconds went by before Ian answered. Then Ian called out, “Amos?” The young Irishman rolled back into the doorway, trying not to look worried. “All right, we’ll give it a try. Let me see what you have in your backpack.” He accepted the pack and peeked inside. Amos wondered what he’d think of the contents: a calculus textbook, a chemistry book, British history and _Shakespeare’s Greatest Works_ , along with some Iron Maiden tapes and a battered old walkman. Was he checking Amos’s reading level or checking for drugs? “All right. I’ll help you. Don't thank me, thank Ms. Wallace here.”

“Randi,” she offered, extending her hand.

Amos rolled forward and pumped her hand, eagerness plain on his face. “Thank you, Randi. And you, Dr. Matheson. I won’t let you down.”

*****

Ian watched Amos push his chair down the hall. He closed the door and turned back to Randi. The expression on his face warned her that she was in for a chewing out.

“He needs someone to look out for him, Ian,” said Randi, “if he doesn’t get that, I think he’ll just fall through the cracks. He’ll end up drinking himself into an early grave or something.”

“Randi, there are ‘troubled youths’, as the news likes to call them, all over London. All over the world in fact--”

“They don’t come to your door and ask point-blank for help, Ian. This is different.”

“Randi, I don’t think you realize what you’re getting into. It’s not just how far behind in school he is, or that he’s in a wheelchair. He’s Irish. You can see it in his eyes, he blames me and every man on the street for the troubles in his country, when he should be blaming himself for pitching bombs!”

“That’s not fair, Ian. All right, he’s got problems--” Ian raised an eyebrow at her and she exploded. “I know what it’s like, all right? I know what it’s like to wake up one morning and know that you can’t ever again make a single decision without remembering your little ‘problem’. If I didn’t have you...” she scrubbed angrily at her eyes, trying to push back the tears. “If I didn’t have you, I’d probably kill myself,” she said softly. “Amos deserves to have someone the way I have you, Ian. He deserves a chance to get his life together.”

*****

Though Amos was the first to admit that he was opinionated, crude and rowdy at every opportunity, he was also highly intelligent when treated with patience and respect. The only difficulty was cramming two years of education into less than a year of study. After the first few days, Ian accepted Amos’s offer of assistance in kind, sending the beleaguered boy all over the department library looking up obscure mythological figures. Thank God the library was adjacent to Ian’s office, meaning Amos only had to tackle the stairs twice a day. Every time Amos reported back for more help with his own studies, he would hand Ian Xeroxed sheets, copied notes, and his own, often rudimentary, opinions of whatever he had been assigned to. This seemed to delight Ian, and the two of them would sometimes spend hours debating the meaning and significance of various figures. Amos had quickly taken to the art of verbal combat, though as he was unused to abstract argument, his rebuttals often devolved into “No! You’re wrong!”

As to Amos’s own studies, they set up a system within a week where Ian would assign texts and Randi would talk Amos through them whenever Ian became too obscure or went too far out of his area of expertise. They met in the open courtyard on the ground floor, so aside from the treat of being with Randi, Amos was also given a holiday from the indignity of the daily climb upstairs.

On a gray autumn day, Randi sat in her usual alcove between two pillars on the edge of the courtyard, while Amos sat in his wheelchair with books piled high in his lap. “This Zoroastrian stuff is crazy,” Amos declared. “Really messed up. Looks like Dr. Matheson and I’ll be having a lovely fight over it later.” He grinned at the notion.

He loved watching Randi, especially when she smiled. He could watch her for hours, days. She had such an open, honest face, without the inborn wariness he used to see in the faces of the girls back home. When he was here, with her, he could forget the three-room flat where he lived with his family, forget how torn and confused he felt about Ireland. Sometimes he could forget who he was altogether.

Randi grinned and tousled his hair. “You need a haircut, Amos. It’s almost down to your shoulders.”

“Quit it, Randi,” Amos muttered, unsure whether to pull away or enjoy her touching him.

That was when her fingers found the map of scars. “Amos? What is this?” He pulled away, and as he did so he could see her eyes widen as she caught sight of the mess of lines on the back of his neck. At least she hadn’t seen the ones on his back. “What happened, Amos?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” he muttered. “I’m having a lot of problems with this problem on page 97.”

“Can I ask you something, Amos?” Randi interrupted his train of thought, fidgeting.

“Oh, popping the question already?” he thought quickly, still trying to change the inevitable topic, “You really are a randy girl. Must be my Irish charm getting the better of you.”

She took a deep breath. “Your jeans and shoes are always scuffed up, so how long ago did you, uh...”

“Five months.” Amos replied neutrally.

“How did it happen?”

“That’s two questions. Sorry, time’s up. My turn. Are you in love with Dr. Matheson, or do I have a chance at you?”

“That’s two,” Randi countered. “I’ll answer if you answer.” She considered for a moment. “Ian and I ... we’re friends. Well, I guess we’re closer than friends. It’s ... it’s complicated.”

Amos pursed his lips, making a bridge of his fingers. “It was a pub. My friend Toby’s brother was buying, I had a couple or three pints in me. And then...” He fixed his gaze on a spot over Randi’s left shoulder. “The explosion threw me forward onto the bar.”

“A bomb?” Randi asked.

“Mm." He didn't tell her that some IRA boys had been making the bomb in the attic and had accidentally set it off in their own bar. "You know how sometimes they have a big thing over the bar,” he gestured with his hands, “where the bartender hangs glasses to dry and takes them down when he needs them? It fell, and the glasses broke, and so did my back. They say I won’t ever feel anything below my waist again, even though everything’s still there. So no more stickball, and no more hiking or wrestling with my Da. That’s why we moved here. Mum and Da didn’t want anything else happening to me or Peggy.”

Randi nodded. “Your sister?”

“That’s three. Yes, she’s my sister. Are you helping me because you feel sorry for me?”

She opened her mouth, shut it, and tried again. “I started helping you because I could. Not all problems can be fixed. But now it’s because you’re my friend, and I like being with you.” His hopeful eagerness must have shown in his face, because her next words were, “Amos, you’re a sweet guy and you make me laugh. You’re a great friend. But you’re seven years younger then me, and at this age seven years means a lot. You’re just a kid, Amos. I’m sorry.”

“So, I guess I just don’t sweep you off your feet, huh?” he remarked with a bitter edge.

She winced. “You’re a little young to be so cynical.”

“So you’ve said.” He forced a grin and picked up his book. “All right, back to calculus.” As Randi turned to look over his shoulder, he asked, “Randi? Will you go hiking with me?”

Randi paused. “I’ll see what I can do.”

*****

Ian looked up from the paper he was grading when Randi strolled into the room. “All right, what is it you’re hoping for?”

She hopped up and sat on his desk. “What would you say to taking Amos driving on the moors?”

“I’d say you were both crazy.” But he leaned back in his chair and watched her, anticipating her passionate argument.

“Ian, it’s so important to him. He hasn’t been anywhere since he was paralyzed.”

“Randi, did he say that he wanted to go on a nice country drive and have a picnic lunch?”

“No, he said he wanted to hike. But I think it’s pretty obvious he’s not going to go rock climbing. Ian, please, come on.”

Ian fidgeted with his tie. “Randi, has it occurred to you that Amos is infatuated with you?”

“Yeah, we talked about it--”

“He can’t have you. He’s too young.”

Randi leaned forward with a slight grin. “No need to get jealous, _Professor_ , I told him that.” Her expression turned sad. “And I can’t have you because you’re my teacher.”

Ian looked away. “I’m not jealous. But it’s certainly true that we haven’t had as much time alone together. Time we could have spent searching for a cure.”

“Look, Ian, Amos is a good kid. And he’s a friend by now. When I came to England, I was just hoping to study with you. I didn’t expect to live with your family! But they’re a part of my life now, and so’s Amos.”

Ian decided to try a different tack. “I’m willing to bet that in the time he’s been in that wheelchair, he hasn’t had any sort of a romantic relationship.”

“You’re saying he’s after me because he’s desperate?” Randi glared at Ian.

Ian made his voice as soothing as possible. “No, I’m saying that in purely Freudian terms, losing the use of his legs has probably made him think of himself as half a man. Hiking, even the watered down version he can still do, may be his way of proving his manhood for you. I think both the hiking itself and your lack of reaction will be a terrible disappointment for him.”

“So it’s better not to let him go?” Randi saddened. “I just wished there was something I could do...”

Ian wanted to stand firm, but Randi looked so disappointed. He wanted to cheer her up. “I think I may have an idea.”

*****

A few days later, the three of them took Ian’s car out on the moors, bringing along a picnic lunch and a blanket to sit on. “Why don’t we go out here more often, Ian? This is beautiful,” said Randi.

“Possibly because the last time we came up here you nearly drove both of us off a cliff.”

She blushed. “It’s not like I crashed your precious car.”

“No, you just managed to shave ten years off my life.”  


  
Amos laughed from the back seat. “Maybe I should leave you to Dr. Matheson. I do want to live to see my graduation, Randi.”

“And here I thought you loved living dangerously,” she teased. “Oh, park here, Ian. This is gorgeous.” She pointed to a mossy set of rocks overlooking a shadowed valley.

“Oh, I do love living dangerously,” Amos replied. “That’s why I’m camping out on the moors with two friends next Sunday.”

“Amos, the moors aren’t the best place for teenage boys at night,” Ian warned.

“Oh, that’s not the risky part, Dr. Matheson,” Amos countered cheerily. “The scary part is what my Mum will do to me afterwards.”

“A man living on the edge,” Ian commented, opening the car door. “Pay attention, Randi. We’re in the presence of greatness.” He offered Amos his shoulder to hold on to, and carried the tough Irish kid to the rock where Randi was determined to sit.

“My hero,” Amos quipped. “But, carrying me over the threshold of your car without even writing up the wedding invitations? What will the neighbors think?”

“Let’s work on squeezing you into a wedding gown first, shall we?” Ian tossed off, heading back for the food.

Randi turned to Amos and whispered, “What’s going on with you and Ian?”

“He called me into his office the other day, said something like, ‘in view of the working relationship between you, Randi and myself, romantic competition would be highly inappropriate and destructive’.” Amos’s English accent was hysterical. “So I was joking around and told him maybe we two should pretend to flirt with each other to take the tension off. And he took me seriously. Personally, I think he’s really jealous of me, trying to cover it up to save his dignity.”

Randi took one look at the pleased grin Amos sported and made a mental note to thank Ian later. Just then Ian sat down beside them with a wicker basket and pulled out cakes, sandwiches, a thermos of milk, and another of tea. Randi flopped down on the blanket next to Amos and pulled out her sketch pad.

“Oh no,” Ian groaned. “Amos, don’t let her sketch you. She’ll have snakes coming out of your chest, or some other appalling American attempt at horror.”

Randi grinned. “I draw what I see. Now hold still, Amos.”

“You draw what you see?” Ian asked. “You don’t by any chance take psychotropic drugs, do you?”

Randi rolled her eyes, then shivered as she looked out at the moors where not so long ago the frayed remains of a tent had stood. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea for you to camp out here, Amos. I was attacked near here a few months ago. It’s a lot more dangerous than I thought, especially at night.”

“That’s why there’ll be three of us, and we’re going by the full moon so we have more light. We’ve got flashlights and safety equipment and everything. Trust me, I can take care of myself.” Amos tilted his head, trying to peek at the page Randi was sketching.

“Look, a lot of things go prowling when the moon is out, Amos. I really wouldn’t do it if I were you.” Ian warned.

“What, like ghosts and ghoulies? Oooooo...” He parodied a ghostly sound, waving his arms in front of Randi’s face. “Come on, I want to see!” He snatched the sketch pad from her, losing his balance in the process and ending up with his face in her lap. When Ian managed to extract him, Amos’s face was red with embarrassment, but he managed to quip, “Most action I’ve had in months!” He looked at the page. The eyes were his, and the shaggy hair, but there was a canine edge to the grin, making the face look like a cross between a wolf and a sheep dog. “Oh, come on. I don’t need a haircut that badly!”

“It wasn’t done yet,” Randi explained, putting the drawing book away and biting into her sandwich with a grimace. “Salmon salad. Your mother’s trying out the new recipe, Ian?”

Ian tried a taste of one of the sandwiches and put it away. “Not one of her better experiments. I think this could peel the varnish off my desk.”

“Oh, give it here, then,” Amos teased. “I’ll use it to chase off your goblins.” He took a swig of milk out of his cup. “Milk and cake. Not quite a balanced meal.” He lifted one cake in either hand, using Ian’s shoulder for support. “There. Now it’s balanced.” He was rewarded for his pun with a shower of crumbs thrown by Randi.

“Careful, this is my favorite jacket,” Ian protested. “You’re getting me as much as him, and I didn’t do anything!” Within minutes, conversation devolved into a cheery food fight, and all talk of camping was forgotten.

*****

Amos squirmed into a pair of jeans and used the hanging trapeze suspended from the top bunk to pull himself up and over into his wheelchair. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, trying as hard as he could to wiggle his toes. He opened his eyes to look at them, and saw no hint of movement. His shoulders slumped. He doubled over to pull socks and sneakers onto his unresisting feet, then fumbled through the top drawer for a fresh shirt. Before the accident, back in Ireland, the top two drawers had been Peggy’s, as well as the bottom bunk. Here everything was backwards.

He pulled out a dark blue sweatshirt and threw it on, then fished around at the bottom of the drawer. He pulled out a well-polished handgun. He’d been so scared that the police would search them and find it when his family came over on the ferry. But there had been no search.

Because Toby had still been in the bathroom with his head in a toilet and his body shielded by the dark girl’s boyfriend, he hadn’t even been scratched in the explosion. When he’d visited Amos in the hospital, he had given Amos his father’s gun. ‘It’s not my Da’s anyway, not legally,’ he’d said. ‘Anyone tries to mess with you, you show them what an Irish gimp can do.’

Amos opened the gun, his breathing a little irregular, and checked that the chambers were filled with bullets. He snapped the gun back together with a sharp click, then raised it to his face. The cold circle of metal was a shock against his lips, like the mouth of a beer bottle, only a hundred times more real, more intense. Cold comfort. He suddenly remembered the safety, and the loud snik-ca-click sounded like execution. He was too scared to pull the trigger and too scared to put the gun down. Slowly, slowly, he lowered the gun to his useless lap, then stuffed it into his backpack with the other essentials he needed for his trip to the moors.

“I’m going out for the night, Mum. I’m studying with some friends, all right?”

She walked into the room and leaned in the doorway. He watched emotions compete for ownership of her face: worry for him, reluctance to get in the way of his few friendships, annoyance to be put on the spot. “What’s the number there?”

“I’ll call. I promise. But please, Mum, don’t call. I don’t want to be embarrassed.” He’d call her from a pay phone on the route or something.

“All right. Just remember you have the appointment with the doctor tomorrow. I want you fresh and ready for that.”

“Mum, I don’t want to see any more doctors. You can’t take off work to drive me.”

“Dr. Skiff thinks there’s a chance the nerves might regrow, Amos. I know it hurts to get your hopes up, but you have to keep trying.”

Amos shook his head. “You’ll get your pay docked. I can’t waste your money like that until I’m bringing in some of my own.”

“The money’s not _wasted_ , Amos! There’s nothing more important to us than you and Peggy.” She rubbed his shoulder with affection and false cheer. Neither of them mentioned the fact that Peggy was now chipping in her own hard-earned money to pay the rent and electric, while Amos wasn’t qualified for most jobs. He couldn’t wait to be out of the house, with a degree and a job, so that he could start paying them back, or at least not drain them.

“Got your books?” his mother asked. Amos indicated the knapsack in his lap. “You have a ride?” He nodded. “All right then, have a good time. Let’s have a kiss, now.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

“I love you, Mum.”

*****

“So let us see it then!” Jake demanded. Jake was a tall, lanky boy with glasses and long blond hair that fell into his eyes. His features were a little on the sharp side, with a hawkish nose. His twin brother Cory looked much the same, but with spiky brown hair and no glasses. The three of them had maneuvered the car up on a hill on the moors and made their fire a couple of meters from the car. They had sleeping bags out, and were sitting on them around the fire as they held sticks of sausages over the flames to cook.

Obligingly, Amos pulled out the gun. “This’ll keep any trouble away tonight, to be sure.”

Cory handled the gun gingerly, eyes wide with awe. “And your friend just gave it to you?”

“Yeah. His father wasn’t too happy to find it gone, but when Toby explained it was for me, he let up.” The thought of Toby made him homesick, and he quickly changed the subject. “That girl Christine was all over you at lunch the other day, Jake,” said Amos.

Jake shrugged. “She’s not that pretty.”

“Not that pretty?” Cory echoed. “I think you’re full of it.”

“Like her so much, you take her then,” Jake responded. “Hey, let me!” He took the gun from his brother’s hand, pretending to aim it into the dark. That was when they heard it, a low howl in the distance. “What was that?”

“That was the wind, you bloody old woman,” Amos told him. “You just want something to shoot at.”

“What if it was a wild dog?” Cory asked, trying to grab back the gun.

“Look, I’ve done more hiking in my life than you’ve done walking. It’s the wind over a cave mouth. No dog’s got that low a throat. It’d have to be the size of a house.” Amos lifted his stick out of the fire and examined the sausage links on the end. “I think they’re done.”

The boys pulled out their sticks as well and took huge bites of the hot, crisped meat, sucking in quick breaths to cool the sizzling food in their mouths. Jake kept trying to aim the gun at distant rocks as he tilted his head to munch on the sausages without taking them off the stick.

“You’re going to shoot yourself in the head like that,” said Amos. “Give it here. He held out the hand that was also holding his sausage stick, using his free hand to prop his body up.

“Nah. You’ll get it full of grease that way, Amos. I’ll give it back when you’ve got a free hand.”

“I’m the only one here who knows how to shoot it,” Amos pointed out, just as they heard the alien howl again.

“Cause you’re Irish.” Jake grumbled.

“Say that again and I’ll come over there and break you,” Amos growled.

The howl came again, louder, fiercer. “I think it’s getting a lot closer, Jake,” said Cory, drawing up his knees a little. “You sure that’s not a dog, Amos?”

“Cory, why don’t you start loading up the car, just in case,” Jake ordered, clicking the safety off the gun.

Even as Cory pulled the door open, a huge, dark figure suddenly flung itself forward, snarling and slashing as it leapt over the fire. Jake screamed and fired two shots at the thing, not even hitting it. He pelted for the car and leapt in even as Cory started driving in reverse, trying to keep ahead of the creature. It followed them for a few seconds, then turned back to easier prey.

Amos swallowed hard as the thing came towards him. It was the first time he knew he was going to die. Then the creature leapt at him. For a stunned moment, as its hot breath burned his throat, he was too numb to react. Then a heavy claw slashed his chest. Pain exploded through him and he began his useless screams, struggling against his enormous attacker.

*****

He woke up slowly, in pieces. Something was wrong. He could feel a dull, drugged ache in his arms and chest, at his neck. But he couldn’t feel his lower half at all. Hospital. He was in a hospital, and he was paralyzed. He was cut up from the glass shards. The redhead was down in the morgue.

He opened his eyes. His parents and sister sat around the bed, trying to smile at him. “Toby,” he mumbled, “Toby’s all right?”

His father frowned, worried. “Don’t you remember, Amos? That was months ago.” And now it flooded back. Camping. That thing on the moors. “I’m sorry, Da, Mum.” he whispered. “I just needed to feel like something other than a cripple.”

“Looks like it worked wonders,” his mother bit off, just as his father soothed, “It’s all right, Amos. Just try to get well.”

“That was just stupid.” Peggy snapped. She kept twisting and gripping her hands helplessly. “It’s not like you could actually go anywhere on the moors. All you were doing was sitting somewhere dangerous and stupid with two hulking big boys to pick you up if you fell over on your face.”

She tried to glare him down, but even under drugs, Amos prided himself on not letting his little sister think she could get the better of him. “Leave it alone, Peggy.” he muttered. It hurt to talk.

“Just try to think about getting well,” his mother offered. “Dr. Matheson and that nice girl Randi were here earlier. They waited all day for you to wake up, and they made us promise to call them when you did.” She squeezed his hand gently.

All day? “How long...”

“Two days, you’ve been out,” Peggy answered. “I got off from school and work.”

Amos tried to nod, but he found it hurt as much to nod as it did to talk. Instead, he drifted back to sleep.

*****

  
Hospitals made Amos’s skin crawl. The last time he woke up in one, they took half his body away. This time they just took chunks out of the other half, leaving him wrapped in tight pain.  


  
“Hello, Amos,” Dr. Skiff greeted him. “You’re two days late for your tests, you know.”

Amos looked away. “Bloody witch doctor.”

“I’m glad to see you, too,” the balding man with a beak of a nose replied. “I’ll be overseeing your recovery while you’re here.”  


  
“And how long’ll that be, in your opinion?”

“At least a week.”

“Like hell,” Amos shot off. “It’s not like you can fix me up any better.”

The doctor ignored the anger and accusation in Amos’s voice. “I’m not going to release you until there is no chance of infection or ulceration in your legs. We need to make sure you’re healing correctly, especially with your paralysis. And even after I let you go, you’ll have to stay in bed for a while, or you’ll risk tearing open your stitches with the reckless way you use your wheelchair.”

“As soon as I can get back in that wheelchair, I’m getting out of here.”

“If I have to strap you down for your own good, Amos, I won’t hesitate to do so. I may even gag you for good measure.” The doctor left the room, barely nodding to Ian and Randi, who were waiting outside the door. Amos felt a slight prickling, like goosebumps, when he saw Randi, and there seemed to be a sweet, rank scent in the air as she came nearer.

“Making new friends?” Ian asked as they entered. “You don’t look much the worse for wear.”

“Liar.” Amos whispered. He had seen himself in a mirror this morning, when a nurse came to shave him. His face was pale and puffy, and they had shaved some of the hair on the left side of his head for stitches. There were more bandages under his hospital gown on his chest and limbs. “They say they left all my parts in, but personally I think they took my liver and kidneys to feed the other patients.” His voice seemed hollow even to him.

“You mean they serve steak and kidney pie in hospitals now?” Ian quipped. “Hm, hospital food might be better than the last time I was here, then. Randi, hit me with something so I can end up in the next bed and find out.”

“Mum Matheson made you scones,” Randi offered the plate to him. “Just how bad is it?”

“What, the scone?” Amos avoided, tasting one of the textured buns. “Not bad at all.” Under her worried look, he finally said, “They say I’ll have scars. Big ones. Not that any girl will go far enough to see them anyway. They gave me all kinds of shots, lots of blood, lots of stitches. At least I didn’t break any bones.”

“The police said it was a wild dog,” Ian stated, staring hard at Amos. Amos looked away for a long minute. “Amos? It wasn’t a wild dog, was it?”

Amos looked out the window into the distance. “It was dark out, and I was scared and ... and everything. But ... dogs don’t stand on two legs.” He shuddered, and tears suddenly spilled down his cheeks. “I’m tired from all the drugs, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. We can come back later if you like.” Ian suggested.

Randi leaned over the bed and kissed Amos on the forehead. “We’ll be back. I promise.”

Amos nodded tightly. “Yeah. I’ll see you.”

*****

Ian closed the door of his office and sank wearily into his chair. “Well?”

“It was just like being with Derek Westbury. He’s a werewolf.” Randi shoved his papers out of the way and sat on the edge of the desk. “We have to tell him.”  


  
“Tell him what? ‘Your assignment for tomorrow is the last chapter of the Mahabharata, oh, and by the way, you’re now a psychotic mythological creature who has to be chained up once a month.’ Wonderful.”

“Look, we have to tell him before the next full moon.” Randi looked down at her hands. It still amazed her how being a werewolf had changed her life. Suddenly everything had to do with the cycles of the moon. Every problem had to be solved, every trip completed by the end of the lunar month. One month after she’d been bitten, she chased Ian through the library and realized what she was. One month after that, they’d ruined their chance to sever the bloodline and they’d had to figure out a way to chain her up. Amos lived in a poor, crowded neighborhood. If he transformed there, he could kill dozens of people, maybe even his own family. She couldn’t let that happen.

“It can’t be the same werewolf that attacked me, Pitak died in the fire when his car ran off the road. But maybe Amos’s werewolf is still out on the moors. If we drove him out there, we might be able to track the werewolf and help Amos sever the bloodline!”  


  
“That’s assuming we can convince him.” Ian looked at her. “Randi, we’re probably going to have to tell him about you to convince him. Are you ready for that? What if he doesn’t believe?”

“He has to.”

*****

Jake and Cory came by, afterwards, both visibly squirming as they stood. “You look pretty good, Amos,” Jake lied.

 _You left me. Bloody English bastard. An Irishman would have gone back and helped his friend. Toby would have helped me, if he could._ “Thanks.”

“We got your homework for you,” Cory put in, laying the pages on the bed table.

There was another awkward minute. Then Jake looked behind the curtain partition to make sure the next patient was asleep, and then pulled the gun out of his waistband and placed it on top of the homework. “I’m sorry.”

“Should have left it with me. I know how to use it.” Amos muttered. “Thanks for stopping by, all right? I’ll see you back in school.”

“You’re all right, then?” Cory asked hopefully.

“I’ll be out of here in a bit. I’ll just have some fine battle scars to show the girls at school.”

The two brothers laughed stiffly, already backing towards the door. Amos waved good-bye to them and let them get on with their lives.

He slid the gun under the blanket, wishing he had a drawer, wishing this was a private room, wishing the door wasn’t open, anything to keep it from being discovered. Then he had an idea. He waited for his sister to come in the afternoon. “Close the door after you, all right?” he asked.

She sat down on the side of the bed. “How’re you feeling, Amos?”  


  
He looked at her, and almost couldn’t go through with it. She had her mousy brown hair up in pigtails and she was wearing her faded blue cardigan. She should have looked twelve, but the pain and worry in her eyes and face made her look twenty six. No one should look that old at sixteen. “Peggy, I need you to do me a favor.” He took a deep breath. “When I get out of here, I want you to drive me up to the moors so I can find that thing.”

“And what? Arm wrestle it?” He pulled out the gun and showed it to her. “Absolutely not. Amos, you’re crazy! Are you trying to kill yourself? You’re not all right any more! You can’t run, you can’t track it, you can’t drive, and I don’t think you can aim worth a damn because you can’t turn your body! You really think you can take on that thing? You stupid--”  


  
“Hey, none of that. I’m the older one, remember?” His voice took on a pleading tone. “Peggy, every night I dream I’m back in the pub. I don't have room in me for two sets of nightmares. I can’t let that thing live after it hurt me like that. I have to do this. Please, Peggy.”

“Absolutely not,” she repeated, but he thought he saw a wavering in her eyes. He would just have to work a little harder on her.  


  
“Just hide it for me, all right? They’ll take it away if they find it here, and I don’t want to lose it. It was Toby’s.”  


  
She paused, then slipped it into her knapsack. “I’m not giving it back, not if you’re going to use it.” She squirmed under his gaze. “I’m not!”  


*****

  
Amos was propped up in his bed doing homework when he felt a slight prickling under his skin and smelled a sharp, thick tang in the air. A moment later, Randi and Ian came through the door. “Feeling any better?” Randi asked. She peeked over his shoulder. “Oh, Tennyson. That’s probably better than the morphine they have you on.” She shot him a strange look.

Amos smiled. “Mum and Da can’t get off from work to visit during the day, so there’s nothing to do but study and try to seduce the nurses.”

“The sooner they have you out of here, the better, then,” Ian declared. “We can’t have a dozen little Amoses running around.” He sat down on the window side of the bed, and Randi shut the door and sat on the opposite side.  


  
Amos laughed nervously. “What’re you going to do, tackle me? I can’t exactly make a break for it, you know.” He didn’t like the awkward determination in their eyes. Had he done something wrong? Had they decided not to tutor him any more?

“Amos,” Randi started hesitantly, “You remember what you said about the thing that attacked you? Well, you’re right. It wasn’t a wild dog. It was the same thing that attacked me a few months ago. A werewolf.”

Amos laughed. “You’re full of it. Look, I know I sounded crazy, but that’s no reason to make fun of me.”

Ian shook his head. “We’re not making fun of you. Randi’s a werewolf.”

Randi touched Amos’s shoulder. “Ian has to lock me up every full moon until we find a cure. We can lock you up too, to keep you from hurting anyone when you transform.”

“You’re both crazy,” Amos said. “First off, there’s no such thing as werewolves. If there were, there’d be hundreds of them out there, from all of them biting each other, and we’d have heard about it by now. Second, even if there were werewolves and one of them got me I’m not much of a threat.” He waved one hand to indicate his legs. “What am I going to do, howl at people as I try to drag myself after them with my arms? Wheel madly after them in my chair? Be a right bloody comedy, it would.”

“Please, Amos,” said Ian, “you have to believe us. It’s important.”

Amos laughed. “You two are crazy. There’s no such thing as werewolves.”

Ian pressed his lips together, visibly frustrated. “All right, I’ll leave it alone for now. Just think about it.” He pulled out a packet of papers. “I’ve been doing a little work on your behalf. I hope you don’t mind.”

Amos shrugged. “Depends on what it is.” Ian pulled up the top sheet and handed it to him. It was an official-type letter. He skipped the headings and started reading. _...In the past few months, Amos O’Keefe has made tremendous effort to improve his academic standing. Though his previous teachers’ reports indicate an apathetic and unintelligent young man, Amos has applied himself to his studies with remarkable dedication, even doing graduate level work under my supervision. It is my opinion that Amos O’Keefe would be a fine addition to our school..._ Amos looked up. “You wrote this? You did this for me?”

“Either I did, or someone has gotten very good at forging my signature.” Ian pointed out the nearly illegible script at the bottom. “And this is the response,” he added, handing over the next set of papers before Amos could react.

Amos couldn’t keep his voice from shaking. “They really liked your letter.”

“They really liked your grades. You deserve this, Amos.” Ian put his arm around Amos’s shoulder, careful of the boy’s injuries.

Amos swallowed hard. Why were they doing this? He was an Irishman. He could pull his own weight, he didn’t need Englishmen coming to his rescue. And yet, he had come to them. He had been so damn sure when he first came to visit Ian that he would just get lessons in exchange for work, that he would have to put in twice as much as he got out. He was ready for that. He wasn’t ready for this: Ian and Randi coming to his rescue for no reason. He didn’t know quite what to do with it. “You’ll have to see my ugly face for years now, you know. I’ll be taking your classes so we can keep up our fights.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Ian, “You’ll have to live at home, and the cost of books will be murder, but knowing you, you’ll get the money somehow.”

Amos squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, determined not to cry again. “You -- you’re good people, you know that?” He saw the two of them smile encouragingly. “Thanks Randi, and you too, Dr. Matheson.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, call me Ian already,” Ian ordered. “I don’t stand on formality with my friends.”

*****

The hospital released Amos after six days and extensive tests. Dr. Skiff said the new injuries were healing well and shouldn’t even scar too badly so long as they were kept clean. He also said that there was still no nerve response in Amos’s legs, which was little surprise to Amos.  


  
Randi and Ian came by to see him the day he came home. “Brought you flowers,” said Ian, putting them in an old coffee can filled with water.

Amos had the feeling the flowers were originally from Randi. “Thanks to both of you. They’re lovely.”

Randi sat on the side of the bed. “Have you thought at all about what we said last time?”

“What, about werewolves?” Amos laughed, but he couldn’t forget that huge, horrible shadow looming over him.

“There may be a way to cure you. If we find the werewolf who attacked you and you kill it, you can sever the bloodline.”

“You’ll let me hunt it?” Amos sat up eagerly, but the sharp pain reminded him to lie down.

Ian settled in a chair by the bed. “Of a sort. We’ll look for clues about who this person might be and where to find them. More detective work than hunting.”

Amos nodded. “I still think this is crazy. But if you’ll let me hunt...”

*****

  
They spent days searching the moors for scarps of burst clothing or jewelry. They found a gentleman’s watch with a burst band and a set of ripped leather shoes, but there wasn’t much else to go on. They even put an advertisement in the paper saying they’d found the watch, hoping the werewolf would come forward to claim it. No luck.

Though he admitted that he felt something when he was around Randi, he just couldn’t believe that either of them could really turn into a savage beast for no reason, no matter how rowdy he got with a few pints of lager in him. Still, their persistence made him a little unsettled. And unfortunately, that meant he was now determined to go hunting the creature during the full moon. If it was a werewolf, it would only show up then. Ian and Randi absolutely refused to go hunting then, and they wouldn’t stop harping on him about locking himself up for the night.

So Amos worked as hard as he could on convincing Peggy to drive him out to the moors. His nightmares did more in that department than his arguments did; Peggy couldn’t stand waking up every night to the sound of him whimpering and calling out in fear and pain. He wondered if he needed silver shot to kill a werewolf. He decided he didn’t, mostly because there was no way to come by it.

On the night of the full moon both of Amos’s parents worked late, another incentive to go hunting then. Peggy borrowed Jake’s car, explaining that she was taking Amos across town for some errands, and headed out with him to the moors. Their arsenal consisted of a flashlight and the gun. “I need you to hold me up so I can turn and shoot, but that thing howls long before it gets in range, so we can sit in the car until then.” He thought about it. “Maybe we should light a fire to attract it. Do you know how to do that?”  


  
“We don’t have any matches, Amos,” she reminded him.

He fumbled around in the glove compartment and fished out a matchbook. “Cory and Jake both smoke.”

Peggy rolled her eyes. “Fine, then. Give it here.” She set about gathering kindling, grumbling all the while. “I can’t believe you talked me into this, Amos. This is the last time I do anything for you. If we don't get home before Mum and Da get off work...”

“You can tell them I beat you up and made you do it,” Amos grinned, enjoying every minute of this. He popped the safety off the gun and watched the last embers of the sun sink over the horizon. “This is the same spot, so hopefully it’s part of that thing’s hunting grounds.”

Peggy looked up as she finished setting the fire. “You miss hiking a lot, don’t you?”

Amos’s grin became pained. “I don’t want to talk about it, Peggy.”

“I do. We never really talk anymore. Only fight.”

"We talked before? First I’ve heard of it.” But she’d driven him out here, risked the worst kind of trouble from Mum and Da for him. Back in Ireland he knew he could count on his mates, and he’d do anything for them. Here there was only his sister and Randi and Ian. If he didn’t trust them, he’d be alone. “I used to stay in the woods for days, just following deer paths and eating rabbits. Now if I’m ten minutes late, Mum sends out the National Guard trying to find me. I can’t even get in and out of the car without your help. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

Peggy hugged her arms to her chest. “Dr. Skiff says that as you get used to the chair, it won’t be so bad anymore. You’ll get used to moving in it, doing things for yourself again.”

Amos screwed his face up. “You don't get it, Peggy. Hiking was the one way I could get away from everything: the soldiers, the fights at school, the house. I could just forget who I was for as long as I liked. Now I can’t ever forget. I have to remember, every time I move, every time I look at a pretty girl, every moment I’m awake. These won’t let me forget.” He slapped his legs for emphasis. Then he froze. He swallowed hard. “Sweet Mary.” There was pain in his stomach, in his shoulders, something was stretching and pulling him like taffy, but he didn’t care. “Oh my God, Peggy, I felt that! I felt my legs!”

His body began twisting, jerking. He heard Peggy’s cry of alarm, heard her slam the door of the car and come running around to his side, opening the door to see if he was all right. He pushed her away and jumped past her, writhing in pain on the ground. He heard her scream, but was barely aware of it. His senses were exploding with data, his body was alive and whole and real. He heard a howl in the distance and answered it with one of his own. Then he ran. Ran! Into the night.

Wet grass slapped legs. Loping across the moors. Smell the moon, the musk of the woods. Legs coil, tear forward, over ground, around tress, over rocks. Free sweet need yes wet grass smell rabbit pounce blood hot sweet.

He was not sure at all of the passing of time, but soon the sensations began to fade, to soothe. He lay down in the grass and let his heaving breath slow as his senses grew duller. Slowly, the feeling faded from his legs, and they became as numb and useless as before. But even that couldn’t stop his grin. He had run! For one ecstatic night, he had been free again.

*****

Later that day, Amos rolled his wheelchair into Ian’s office with the same huge grin on his face and an uncommon joy in his eyes. Ian’s shoulders slumped in relief when he caught sight of Amos.

“I heard you were waiting at my house when my parents came home last night,” said Amos. His grin widened. “You were right, Dr. Matheson.”

“Are you all right, Amos?” Ian asked, his shoulders slumping in relief. “We were worried about you.”

Amos laughed. “I woke up on the grass without a stitch on, and it took forever for Peggy to find me. But I ran, Ian. I could feel the wet grass slap my legs, and I ran. I ran all night over the moors.”

Ian nodded, looking distracted. “I tried to tell you before, Randi is a werewolf too. I can chain you once a month, keep you from hurting anyone. You can tell your folks you’re sleeping over with Julian--”

“Lock me up? What the hell for?” Amos’s joy turned to anger.

“To keep you from hurting anyone. What if you transformed here in London? You could kill a dozen people, maybe even your family. Or out on the moors, if you found someone out camping.” Ian leaned forward. “Amos, we’ll find you a cure, I promise. It’ll just take some time.”

“I don’t want a cure! And I won’t be chained up! Didn’t you hear me, Dr. Matheson? I ran. Why would I give that up? I’m not going to hurt anyone, I’m not some sort of savage. I’ll just run around on the moors where I won’t scare anyone.”

Ian shook his head. “Amos, does Randi strike you as some sort of psychopath? The first time she transformed, she nearly killed me. She killed all the animals in the school laboratory. I have to chain her every month to keep her from doing anything she’ll regret when she’s herself again.”

“Well, maybe she just doesn’t have enough self control.” Amos burst out, glaring at Ian. “I can handle this, Ian. I’m not going to give it up to be chained like an animal.”

Ian laid a hand on Amos’s shoulder. “Amos, once a month you _are_ an animal.”

Amos jerked his shoulder away. “I’m not going to talk about this. Now are we going to study history, or not?”

Ian ignored the sick feeling in his stomach. He could work on Amos later. They had a full month, after all. “Right, then. We were up to the fall of the Ottoman Empire.”

*****

“We have to help him, Randi,” said Ian. “Either we convince him to lock himself up, or he’ll do serious damage. After the fright he gave his sister, trying to find him in the morning, I doubt he’ll have a ride out to the moors next time. He might not get out of London.”

Randi thought about it. “We could keep trying to find the werewolf that bit him. But we need Amos’s cooperation, and he doesn’t want a cure.”

Ian frowned. “Maybe we could make a trail of doggie treats from Amos’s house to our cellar.”

“Very funny. Look, maybe if I talk to him, he’ll change his mind.” She chewed the eraser tip on her pencil. “You know, to him we probably sound like grown ups telling him to go to his room. Either we’ve got to change that, or get some more ammunition on our side. I’m going to go talk to his sister.”

*****

Amos wheeled his chair into the room he shared with his sister. “Peggy? Look, I know it scared you last month when I changed. But I need your help again. I need you to drive me out to the moors again and leave me like you did last time, cover for me so that Mum and Da don’t find out, and then come for me in the morning. I know it’s a lot to ask, but--” He trailed off, hopeful.

Peggy looked up from the book she was reading, and pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I talked to Randi, and she explained everything.”

Amos’s heart sank. “Oh.”

“You really think you’re better off out on the moors? You think you can handle it?”

“I know I can. The only thing I hurt last time was a rabbit, which is what I usually kill for food when I’m hiking. It’s still me under all that fur, Peggy, and I’d never hurt anyone. I just need to run again, I need to be myself and not have to answer to anyone or ask anyone for help.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to go to extreme lengths so you can have a night where you don’t need any help. This doesn’t strike you as the least bit odd?” She paused to look at his pleading face. “All right. You know yourself better than Randi does, I guess. I’ll drive you out there tonight.”

Within a few hours, she drove up in front of the house in Jake’s borrowed car and put Amos in the front seat, placing his wheelchair in back. “I’ll come back for you in the morning, right?” she asked. She turned the ignition and started driving through the city.

Amos grinned in anticipation, looking out the window impatiently. He looked at her in surprise when they stopped in front of a house in the middle of London. “Where are we? What are we doing here?” Peggy parked the car and walked up to the house. Ian and Randi came out of the door, with awkward, apologetic looks on their faces. Amos instantly understood. “No. “No, you can’t do this.” Strong hands grabbed him, and he screamed, “Help! Someone!” Then they stuffed his shirt bottom into his mouth to keep him from scaring the neighbors, and carted him inside, still struggling.

They only freed his mouth when they had chained him down in the cellar. “I’m sorry you had to visit my house under such circumstances,” Ian murmured.

“Let me out of here, dammit!” he screamed. “You can’t do this to me!” His chains were looped through the bars, which meant that he was lying on his stomach on the ground with his arms lifted above his head, trying to argue with people who had about five feet of height on him. “Peggy, you said you’d help me.”

His sister was crying, gripping Randi’s hand for support. “She said if you weren’t locked up, you’d hurt people. It’s not like it used to be, Amos. You need help. You can’t do everything on your own. I had to do this before you hurt yourself any worse, or started hurting anyone else.”

“Like hell you did. Let me out!” He rattled his chains, screaming, praying that someone could hear him upstairs, that someone would rescue him. No one came. Instead, the three people he had thought were his friends backed out of the room.

He lay there for hours, seething with rage. How could they do this to him? He had been looking forward to this for a month, wanting it so bad it made his teeth hurt. And now they chained him up like an animal. He heard the upstairs door creak, and hope sparked in him. “Hello? Is someone up there? Help me!” He could feel the transformation beginning, his body stretching and straining, but he had to get out.

Instead, Ian came down the stairs, trying to hold a struggling Randi. He threw her into the next cell, murmuring apologies as he snatched the manacles from the hook where they were kept.

“Let me out of here!” Amos shouted as Ian struggled to snap manacles around Randi’s wrists and bolt the door after her. “Let me out, damn you!” He surged blindly to his feet, only half aware of what he was doing, and tried to rip the bars out with his hands. “Let me out!” Pain ripped through his body as bones twisted and reshaped themselves, but all Amos could feel was hot rage as he screamed at Ian. The older man watched him with a mixture of fear, fascination and pity evident on his face. That only made Amos angrier. His ribcage expanded, his legs twisted into new forms, his fingers sprouted claws and fur. With a sudden surge of rage he yanked his arms backwards, severing the manacles, then tried to swipe at Ian through the bars. The older man took a step backwards, then made his retreat up the stairs.

Amos’s senses exploded with new information. Mildew cold-stone wet-air bad-cage. He threw himself against the bars again and again, screaming his indignation. female-scent-heat-need-near-want-yes. He had to have her. He had to break the bars and the wall and run to her, take her. Run, run, he had to get out of here. He had to run through the woods. The bars tore at his knuckles, his muzzle, his knees, he had to rip them out, rip them down. Pain-dark-small-RAGE. Need clawed at his insides.  


  
He could hear her, smell her, taste the heavy scent of her in the air. She was screaming rage as powerful as his, and he had to go to her. He swiped at her cage through the bars, and felt her paw grip his. He slammed his body against the bars again and again, ignoring the pain of it. He swiped at her again through the bars and caught her paw. It drove him mad, touching her and not being able to go to her.

After what seemed like an eternity of awful, glorious madness, he felt the power of it fading. Rage subsided, leaving him hollow, filling the hollowness with a dull ache of pain. Randi’s hand was soft to the touch, and he wanted her so badly it hurt. He could smell how much she needed him. He could taste her pain. He could smell her shame, and shame suddenly ripped through him. He was an animal. A savage, brutish thing. A monster.

His knees began buckling as feeling faded from his legs, so slowly, so slowly... “No, no please, not again...” he whispered, tears pouring down his cheeks. “Oh God, not again...” He collapsed on the ground, naked, helpless, filthy, sobbing.

An eon later, he heard a sharp clack, and felt warm, soft flannel cover his body. He looked up and saw Ian crouched beside him. Ian gently examined Amos, running careful fingers over bruises, cuts, old scars, the battleground that was Amos’s body. “You nearly tore yourself in half,” Ian murmured. Then he gently eased Amos’s hands through the sleeves of the shirt, gently heaved him over one shoulder and slid drawers and pants over Amos’s limp lower half. Amos was too far gone to fight him, tell Ian he could dress himself.

Ian set Amos back down on the ground as carefully as he could. “I have to go unlock Randi,” he explained. Amos heard the clacking of chains as Ian freed her. She asked softly, “Is he okay?”

Amos closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, and tried as hard as he could to wiggle his toes. He opened his eyes. Nothing.

“He’s fine,” Ian assured her. He went back to Amos’s cell and hefted the teenager in his arms, heading for the stairs with Randi at his heels. Amos hid his face, unwilling to look at Randi at the moment. He curled his arms around Ian’s neck and let the older man carry him. He needed help. But he didn’t have to like it.

End.


End file.
